REPEAT - MEDIA ADVISORY: Press Conference Outside the Minister of Finance, Vic Fedeli's Office in North Bay

NORTH BAY, Ontario, Jan. 11, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A delegation of concerned citizens from Sudbury and the surrounding area are traveling to North Bay to express their concerns at a press conference outside the office of Minister of Finance, Vic Fedeli with whom we have been requesting a meeting regarding the severe cuts at Health Sciences North, that include the downsizing of more than 50 full-time equivalent positions amounting to the loss of thousands of hours of front-line care and vital patient support services. Mr. Fedeli is the Minister of Finance as well as the MPP for North Bay. As such he is responsible for fiscal policy including hospital funding levels. In addition, the cuts at HSN will negatively impact the residents of North Bay who are forced to travel to Sudbury for an increasing scope of services as services at North Bay's hospital have been cut and centralized to Sudbury.  The current government promised in the election to end ?hallway medicine'. The cuts at Health Sciences North will do the opposite.

Sudbury has already suffered drastic cuts to the hospital services people need.  Three hospitals are now closed and have been replaced by one.  Today, the one remaining hospital ? which is also a regional hospital -- is facing draconian cuts to services and the staff that provide them.  More than 50 health professionals, nursing, and vital support staff positions are in the process of being cut across an array of hospital departments, negatively impacting the patient care that these positions provide ? if we don't stop them.

For more information: Dot Klein, Chair, Sudbury Health Coalition, 705-566-9072; Doug Allan, Spokesperson, Ontario Health Coalition, 416-526-4497 (mobile); Edgar Godoy, Administration and Strategic Development Officer, Ontario Health Coalition office, 416-441-2502.